Me and Deboe, Threshold 2015. Liverpool. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To perform in unison when the weather is perfect is to be expected. To perform with an air of gliding ease indoors with the natural ambiance afforded to you, and the audience smiling with a sense of satisfaction, that is almost a given.

When the madness of March’s weather, unknowing from minute to minute and in which four seasons could deliver their squalid worst or charming best, buffets your face, turns your fingers to chunks of ice before your eyes and the wind, majestically strong, as it races off the River Mersey in the type of bluster normally afforded love struck teenagers trying to hurry along the experience, blasting its invisible strength and taking your breath away and tries to interferes with the performance, then as an audience member you know you have truly come across a band worthy of all your time and energy.

For Me and Deboe, arguably the live act of 2014, to be part of Threshold’s 2015 line up is to be considered once more a privilege and faith shown for all their endeavours over the last 18 months. The festival and the audience who braved the worst that March could bestow upon them would have been of the same mind, that Me and Deboe fully deserve their place; it’s just a shame that weather plays a natural fact in some events.

Such issues though are broken with humour and whilst the marquee style canopy took umbrage with having a strong wind to try and lift up its skirts, for the thought of Mercy Elise to look up at the ensuing prospect and with a wry, but perfectly graceful smile, say, “Thank you and Goodnight” at the thought of the wind not only taking away the canopy but also perhaps Dorothy’s green witch cycling past the racing clouds, only showed the dedication and humour needed to overcome such adversity.

Me and Deboe took stock and heart from Jo Bywater’s similar resolve earlier in the day and gave two wonderful fingers up to the weather and proceeded to give a performance that was filled with honour and heartening heroics. Too many bands, musicians might have given a suitable lacklustre performance, and in truth nobody could blame them for doing so, for playing a guitar when the wind is blowing so hard a gale that audiences themselves would rather find a warm fire to hunker next too, is perhaps the last thing on any mind filled with self preservation.

Such displays perhaps are common place but as Me and Deboe played songs such as Culture Fruit, Glassface, Mother Shipton, the outstanding Forward and a cover of Jefferson Airplane’s resounding Somebody To Love, those who sat in the courtyard of Constellations were visibly thrilled that professional honour and the desire not to be beaten by mere strength sapping cold were much in evidence on the last day of Threshold 2015.

For Me and Deboe, music is all. Not only giving the best gig in 2014 but giving such a tremendous display under such trying conditions as the madness of March’s weather issues, Me and Deboe catapulted themselves up more rungs in the affection of all who see them. Outstanding!

Ian D. Hall